I need help how to approach discussion with my father

[Ina]

Hi all, this is first post here - I am looking for advise from like - minded peope who have been in similar situation. Any tips are greatly appreciated. Thank you. 

It's been a year since I have been in thereapy and discovered FreedomainRadio - it's been the best year of my life and I never felt more alive. However, with self knowledge come dealing with toxic people in my life (including my family). Especially dealing with my parents is tough and I woudl be greatful for your support and insight. 

Here is some background that I think is important:

My father: he was brought up in communist era, his mother was working since he was 3 months-old and he was put into a daycare ever since. His parents cared about him, but didnt really know him. They preised him for his academic and sport achievements. He always had to be him + some sort of success.  There was verbal abuse in the family. Financially, they were doing really well and had a good socio-ekonomic status in their society. My father is very inteligent and succesfull man, however he struggles with proximity. If there is important topic to discuss, he often gets annoyed and agressive - he must win the discussion. He is not used to negotiate in peaceful way. Lately he tries, but the topic / issue is not opened unless someone else brings it up. 

My mother: was born into family with 8 other children (she was the youngest). Her family was very poor and abusive to the point that my mother was taken away from them (not sure at what age exactly but I think she was about 4-7). Since then she grew up in a childcare facilities. Until this day I am not sure how bad her abuse was (I am aware that she had been beaten / had had cigarete burns and I am not sure if the abuse was of sexuall nature as well, but its possible). She doesnt like to talk about anything realted to her early childhood before she was taken away from her family. She also claims that her past is not important because she is not in touch with her parents or siblings (note, that we have never met or seen any of them and I think she hasnt seen them since she was a teenager). She says that she had a great time in those childcare facilities! and that it has not affected her at all! Its hard to get any sort of inforamtion from her about her past. She can not admit she is/was wrong in anything- ever. Its very difficult for her to apologize. My mother always cared about me and my siblings in terms of having enought food, clean clothes, playing with us and preparing us for school, however, this lasted only until we became teenagers and had our own opinions and created our own personality. She had no idea how to deal with us once we were not dependent infants. She cant deal with anoyone disagreeing with her. 

The relationship of my parents wasn't good. Their argues got rather agressive, they were not able to communicate and solve issues and in addition, they were cheating on each other. They got divorced eventually (I was 13 at that time). The divorce was not discussed very much and we simply moved out with our mother. 

My father paid child support and we saw him every other weekend (or more) - he was happy in his new relationship (woman he later married and are still together). In the meantime, the situation home with my mother escalated. Our mother was very nervous and constantly complaining about not having enough money. We started to argue a lot - at one point she told me she hated me and that I was the same as my father (mind: the man she married and had 3 children with)! She started to physically attack me - this confuse me a lot, it seems the parents stop hitting their children when they grow up, but she started to beat me when I was 13 - 15. At that time I knew I could attahk her back but I was afraid that I woudl hurt her! Obviously, she didnt have the same concern about hurting me. 

Seeing how little empathy she had towards me really hurts my feelings. I havent had much contact with my mother since I was 19 (its about 10 years of very little contact / close to none). Last time I talked to her was about 5 months ago and I tried to discuss what I learned in therapy. She eventually apologized, but it wasnt genuine and she keeps saying I just need to move forward and dont bring the past up. She is quite a bully and doesnt want to work on herself. In her mind, something is wrong with me to bring issues from the past up. 

I never said anything to my father about the beating and argues with my mother. I think deep down I knew he wouldnt get involved to fix it. Recently I told him and his answer was quite shocking - he said: "I thought something was going on between you and your mother"!  He didnt know how bad it was, but he didnt even ask! This makes me angry. On one hand, i woudl like to have relationship with at least one parent but on the other, how can you not care about your children when they are being hurt?

My father has done some work on himself and he is able and willing to discuss things. He will be comming over soon. I woudl like discuss it with him. Do you think I am hypocrat for talking to my father but not my mother? Does any of you have similar issue and how you approached it? Did this sort of discussion helped you?

Thank you so much - any feedback welcomed. 

[Dylan Lawrence Moore]

50 minutes ago, Inka-Jo said:

My father has done some work on himself and he is able and willing to discuss things. He will be comming over soon. I woudl like discuss it with him. Do you think I am hypocrat for talking to my father but not my mother? Does any of you have similar issue and how you approached it? Did this sort of discussion helped you?

Thank you so much - any feedback welcomed. 

Nope. Sounds to me like your father is more willing to engage with you on discussion. There is no room for hypocrisy for you here, because at this point you're doing the work of cleaning up the mess your parents made.

I 100% gave up speaking with my mother. She was the most horrible person I have ever had in my life and I have no intention of ever speaking to or seeing her again. My parents divorced when I was 4 and my mom got custody. It was like living in hell, as my mother's outbursts were completely unpredictable and, looking back, I really feel like she enjoyed making me miserable.

I tried very hard to re-engage with my father. I saw him every other weekend until I was 14 yrs old, at which point he disappeared. He was always incredibly nice to me, and all I remember waiting for as a child was the weekend I was able to go to my dad's house. However, he had a huge problem with alcohol and a shitty choice in women. He reappeared when I was 24 (I'm 30 now) and I made a sincere effort to reconnect with him, but ultimately his interest was in alcohol and avoiding responsibility. I'm still willing to talk to him and meet him, but I've pretty much given up interacting with him.

I do not feel like a hypocrit at all for attempting to work with my father and not with my mother.

 

[Jot]

I think it is great you are being proactive and took action by writing this post.

My first curiosity is whether you discussed this with your therapist and assuming you did, what was his input? Did you disagree with him/her or were confused by the answer and wanted further input?

To briefly answer your question, I do not see why you wanting to talk to your father and not with your mother would be hypocritical, unless I missed something, you already gave your mother enough opportunity to work things out with you and she was not committed to take the steps to improve things between you. You could try giving your father the same amount of opportunities and see if he is genuinely cares about your relationship, unlike your mother.

Although, after being mistreated as a child I believe it is entirely up to the parents to try to build/rebuild the bond, not the other way around.

 

IMO this could really be call-in-show worthy, Stefan has always been staggeringly illuminating on these issues.

[RichardY]

2 hours ago, Inka-Jo said:

My father is very inteligent and succesfull man, however he struggles with proximity. If there is important topic to discuss, he often gets annoyed and agressive - he must win the discussion. He is not used to negotiate in peaceful way. Lately he tries, but the topic / issue is not opened unless someone else brings it up. 

Sounds a bit like my father(though probably about average IQ), always picking "sides" with him. Not open to discussion or conversation a brutal Nietchzcean will to Power, probably had about 10 hours conversation over the course of my lifetime mostly about paperwork(intuitively and not counting informalities). Still with my parents, a bum basically, though not an excuse, materially quite a comfortable existence for the UK (area I live in is rural and has had highest migration in human history), they had my grandfather help out a lot with 0% interest loans when rates were high. I thought my father was going to kill me outright when I was 4 or 5, quite tyrannical. Mother in contrast quite a reclusive and motherly figure both parents not very conscientious/conscious.

[Spenc]

Why do you think he didn't ask about "something going on with your mother"?

 

You mentioned he was happy with his new wife, so maybe it was inconvenient for him to have troubles relating to his past wife and family interfering with his happiness, particularly after he was starved for happiness in his young life.  And this would tie into him not wanting to deal with important issues of a persona nature, or more importantly, lacking the skills to deal with them.

 

On the other hand, maybe he was just raised to believe that children 'need' to be beaten and dominated in order to shape them for the world (not dissimilar to the crushing power of a communist regime) and while he had thoughts about your situation, he believed it was a necessary evil, so to speak, that you endure harsh parenting because that's part of learning discipline in order to become a functional adult.

 

Perhaps there are other explanations for what he was thinking and feeling, and surely there would be threads of many explanations woven into the full tapestry of what he was thinking and feeling at the time to allow this abuse to go on.

 

I'm curious if he had mentioned to his new wife that he thought something was going on with you and your mother, and how she might have reacted and advised him.  And how would his discussion of the topic or lackthereof affect your feelings toward your father.  You don't mention any details about the new wife, but would she be the type to perhaps try to pry her husband away from his old family in order to focus all his attentions on her (and the new family, if there are kids involved)?  If she had participated actively in his ignorance of your circumstances with your mother, how would that affect his responsibilities to apologize and change in order to maintain a relationship wth you going forward?  It would seem that she also would have to apologize and change or he would have to leave her for being corrupt and unwilling to change.  That's just my feeling on the matter, not that you have to adopt it....

[Ina]

2 hours ago, Dylan Lawrence Moore said:

Nope. Sounds to me like your father is more willing to engage with you on discussion. There is no room for hypocrisy for you here, because at this point you're doing the work of cleaning up the mess your parents made.

I 100% gave up speaking with my mother. She was the most horrible person I have ever had in my life and I have no intention of ever speaking to or seeing her again. My parents divorced when I was 4 and my mom got custody. It was like living in hell, as my mother's outbursts were completely unpredictable and, looking back, I really feel like she enjoyed making me miserable.

I tried very hard to re-engage with my father. I saw him every other weekend until I was 14 yrs old, at which point he disappeared. He was always incredibly nice to me, and all I remember waiting for as a child was the weekend I was able to go to my dad's house. However, he had a huge problem with alcohol and a shitty choice in women. He reappeared when I was 24 (I'm 30 now) and I made a sincere effort to reconnect with him, but ultimately his interest was in alcohol and avoiding responsibility. I'm still willing to talk to him and meet him, but I've pretty much given up interacting with him.

I do not feel like a hypocrit at all for attempting to work with my father and not with my mother.

 

My dad willing to engage - absolutely, I was actually surprised that he was capable to discuss certain things. I will see him in person soon so I hope to talk to him more and hopefully we can move forward and have stronger and more honest relationship. 

Your mother - I am so sorry to hear that, this is horrible. I know how it feels to sometimes go throught life without your mother than having her in your life. Its so sad. 

My mother - Sometimes I am hesitant whether I am too harsh about my mum:

• For her being raised in extremely abusive household and then in some institutions, she has been doing very well and I should give her some credit.
• She isnt an alcoholic, nor addicted to any substance (except of cigarets which she took up upon teh divorce)  
• She was stayed-at-home mum and for not having healthy family template herself she was doing relatively good job. She used to organize lots of activities for us and was quite fun.
• She was caring but more physically then mentally if it make sence  (I am not sure if she knows who I rerally am).

The problems only came up when I was 13 - 14 and were probably triggered by the divorce. I feel like I was telling her the truth and she resented me for it and got frustrated and volatile. There were times when I thought I must be crazy.

I was 19 when I moved out and I stopped engaging with her (I was tired of the drama). Back then I didnt talk to her for about a year. Then she cotnacted me basically saying that she was in better place (and maybe she apologized briefly, but I am not sure about that). However, every time I tried to talk to her about what happened, she justified her bahaviour saying I was very rude to her. This cyrcle repeated several times with me engagin less and less since there were only very few topic (boring ones) we could discuss.

Last time I talked to her was about 6 months ago while I was in therapy already - it was a skype call as I live in different country. That was interesting call, for the first time in my life she agreed that she made mistakes and she seemed sorry. I challenged her and asked her "arent you going to apologize"? Even though she seemed to be sorry, it was so hard for her to apologize. But she was sad - she even said she woudl try therapy. I didnt expect that.  

However, the conversation after that she dismissed therapy, said she doesnt need it and even made some mean comments on me bringing the same topic up again. She verbally assaluts me and tells me to move on from past, she doenst know why I have to bring it up all the time, etc.

If I was mother, I couldnt stand my daughter not talking to me. My brother and sister tel lme she is said about it, but she makes 0 efforts in contacting me or trying to make it work. I am lost with this. 

Hypocracy - Well my father has done his fair share of mistakes and he didnt help me back then (he knew something was happening and chose not to ask). I feel like its a bit hypocritical to say I have a good realtionship with my father or that he is this great person. Actually, the same as your father - he chose your mother, had child with her and left you deal wtih her. 

Thank you so much for your resonse - it is really helpful to write things down  and being able to openly discuss. 

[Siegfried von Walheim]

EDIT: Disclaimer: While I have some very strong thoughts about the situation, keep in mind I do not know the whole story nor am I a professional psychologist. Take what I see with a grain or bag of salt as you see fit.

I think you should give up on them completely. Your mother physically abused you on a regular basis and didn't care, while your father is a deadbeat who didn't care enough to get involved. Words are sweet, but actions are bitters. Actions are all we can base people on, for if their words do not match their actions then they are liars and manipulators unworthy of investment, and are in fact very destructive parasites.

The fact that you  have to be the de facto mom of the relationship and try to repair it, rather than your actual mother or father doing anything, is telling enough. You should get away from them as soon as possible. If you have already moved out from your family of origin's home, then you should stay out and never return, all the while swearing and endeavoring to never repeat the horrible crimes they committed as fully grown adults with three helpless and dependent children!

Edited June 25, 2017 by Siegfried von Walheim

[Ina]

2 hours ago, Ferssitar said:

I think it is great you are being proactive and took action by writing this post.

My first curiosity is whether you discussed this with your therapist and assuming you did, what was his input? Did you disagree with him/her or were confused by the answer and wanted further input?

To briefly answer your question, I do not see why you wanting to talk to your father and not with your mother would be hypocritical, unless I missed something, you already gave your mother enough opportunity to work things out with you and she was not committed to take the steps to improve things between you. You could try giving your father the same amount of opportunities and see if he is genuinely cares about your relationship, unlike your mother.

Although, after being mistreated as a child I believe it is entirely up to the parents to try to build/rebuild the bond, not the other way around.

 

IMO this could really be call-in-show worthy, Stefan has always been staggeringly illuminating on these issues.

Thank you - I know, Stefan's calls are incredibly illuminating and I take lots of inforamtion from them.

I belive you are right, the parent shoudl try to rebuilt the relationship since he / she defines it. However, I feel I need to bring up the topic, otherwise we would chat about weather with my dad. There has been this weird tension sinc I am in therapy and I needed to bring some of the issues to light - i hope that if we discuss it we can have better bond...

[Siegfried von Walheim]

1 hour ago, Inka-Jo said:

The problems only came up when I was 13 - 14 and were probably triggered by the divorce. I feel like I was telling her the truth and she resented me for it and got frustrated and volatile. There were times when I thought I must be crazy.

Be careful with "I feel like"s, as they tend to be false and dishonest in nature. However since this is about you and not your abusers, I will assume you are honest since it is also a common way of speaking, however you should note the words you use because they can and will influence how you think.

 

Quote

I was 19 when I moved out and I stopped engaging with her (I was tired of the drama). Back then I didnt talk to her for about a year. Then she cotnacted me basically saying that she was in better place (and maybe she apologized briefly, but I am not sure about that). However, every time I tried to talk to her about what happened, she justified her bahaviour saying I was very rude to her. This cyrcle repeated several times with me engagin less and less since there were only very few topic (boring ones) we could discuss.

She is like a deadbeat drug addict; she will never recover and all attempts by you to try to see her recover, or even hope she recovers, is her sucking the life energy from you like the vampire she is. Don't enable her bad behavior with your attention.

Quote

Last time I talked to her was about 6 months ago while I was in therapy already - it was a skype call as I live in different country. That was interesting call, for the first time in my life she agreed that she made mistakes and she seemed sorry. I challenged her and asked her "arent you going to apologize"? Even though she seemed to be sorry, it was so hard for her to apologize. But she was sad - she even said she woudl try therapy. I didnt expect that.  

However, the conversation after that she dismissed therapy, said she doesnt need it and even made some mean comments on me bringing the same topic up again. She verbally assaluts me and tells me to move on from past, she doenst know why I have to bring it up all the time, etc.

I assume you see the analogy I'm talking about; she's a drug addict. She will say anything to get your attention and forgiveness so that her conscience can be put at ease. She doesn't care a damn for you. Her actions have made that very clear.

Quote

If I was mother, I couldnt stand my daughter not talking to me. My brother and sister tel lme she is said about it, but she makes 0 efforts in contacting me or trying to make it work. I am lost with this. 

Well, you're not your mother. You are someone wise enough to realize how terribly she was brought up, and is brave enough to confront the tragedy, and virtuous enough to feel the criminality of your mother's actions in your heart. 

Quote

Hypocracy - Well my father has done his fair share of mistakes and he didnt help me back then (he knew something was happening and chose not to ask). I feel like its a bit hypocritical to say I have a good realtionship with my father or that he is this great person. Actually, the same as your father - he chose your mother, had child with her and left you deal wtih her. 

You're the daughter; you cannot be hypocritical nor at fault, for you are 80% the result of their genes and parenting. Whatever failures you think you have, are their fault fundamentally. 

Now I'm not saying be a determinist and copy them, I'm saying be aware that the moral high ground is yours as the victim of relentless abuse.

We do not say rape victims are at fault for being "too sexy" or whatever.

 

Note the pattern I'm trying to emphasize:

1: She abuses you.

2: You reach out to her.

3: She says she'll change.

4: You check in.

5: She abuses you.

6: You reach out to her.

7: She says she'll change.

8: You check in again.

9: She abuses you...

...See how this'll never end?

Edited June 25, 2017 by Siegfried von Walheim

[Dylan Lawrence Moore]

6 hours ago, Lola said:

The problems only came up when I was 13 - 14 and were probably triggered by the divorce. I feel like I was telling her the truth and she resented me for it and got frustrated and volatile. There were times when I thought I must be crazy.

Let me make a small correction for you:

You began to notice the problems when you were 13 - 14, and it was probably triggered by the divorce.

6 hours ago, Lola said:

My mother - Sometimes I am hesitant whether I am too harsh about my mum:

Sounds like you have a strong amiable character--you try very hard to get along with people. Your mom is more responsible than you are for your childhood, and so far you have made more effort than she has to correct things. She's being too harsh on you.

[cherapple]

On 6/25/2017 at 9:48 AM, Lola said:

She eventually apologized, but it wasnt genuine and she keeps saying I just need to move forward and dont bring the past up. She is quite a bully and doesnt want to work on herself. In her mind, something is wrong with me to bring issues from the past up. 

Do you think I am hypocrat for talking to my father but not my mother?

A couple observations. 

You say "in your mother's mind," something is wrong with you to bring up the past. No, she wants you to believe something is wrong with you so you won't bring up the past. She believes something is wrong with HER if she brings up her own past. That's why she does't do self-work. And she wants to manipulate you to feel the same way about yourself so you won't bring up anything about the past either.

You can talk to whoever you want to - one parent, both parents, neither parent. You are not a hypocrite, whatever your choice. Do what's right for you, and they will do what they think is right for them. A negative label like "hypocrite" benefits your mother, again, if you believe it. 

Refuse to accept negative labels about yourself from other people. Most of the time, they are manipulations. 

All the best in talking to your father. It sounds like there's some hope for real connection there. 

[Spenc]

Hi, I think my post got buried because it was long and required approval from Michael, which understandably took awhile on his SUnday afternoon/evening.  I just want to point out that I think all this talk about your mother and standards for hypocrisy, etc. are all just smoke and mirrors.  The real issue at hand is how you genuinely feel about your father and his betrayal of his duty to check in on you when he sensed something was wrong with you under your mother's care.  I'm wondering if you maybe want to keep communication open with him not in order to find a connection, but rather to get answers for how he could ignore his instincts to protect you, which would provide you the closure to close him out of your life.  (Just a theory/curiosity).

 

I can extrapolate a bit further if you like, but this is the core issue as I see it

[Ina]

4 hours ago, Spenc said:

I'm wondering if you maybe want to keep communication open with him not in order to find a connection, but rather to get answers for how he could ignore his instincts to protect you, which would provide you the closure to close him out of your life.  (Just a theory/curiosity).

 

I can extrapolate a bit further if you like, but this is the core issue as I see it

Hi Spenc and thank you. That's an interesting though. You are right that I need to hear it from him, however the answer is kind of obvious - he didn't care enough. On the other hand he was caring and helped me out a lot. I guess I am looking to find out if he genuinely care about me. 

[Ina]

On 6/25/2017 at 7:07 PM, Spenc said:

You mentioned he was happy with his new wife, so maybe it was inconvenient for him to have troubles relating to his past wife and family interfering with his happiness, particularly after he was starved for happiness in his young life.  And this would tie into him not wanting to deal with important issues of a persona nature, or more importantly, lacking the skills to deal with them.

This I spot on. He definitely had no idea that she hit me (she has never done that before when they were married, but he must have known that we argued). He is not pro spanking or physical abuse. My opinion is that he had enough dealing with my mother. 

I'm curious if he had mentioned to his new wife that he thought something was going on with you and your mother, and how she might have reacted and advised him. 

I don't know. Him and his wife have had children and we spent quite a lot of time around them. I enjoyed being in their household. My step mother is kind, open minded person. She became sort of a mother to me. She supported me in my dreams and thanks to her I am where I am. Ironically enough she has been the only "parent"  that actually listens what you have to say with no agenda. I am able to approach her with challenging topics even those days. I like her and I am very comfortable around her. I'm not sure if she knew about something going on. Thank you for your input! It's very appreciated. 

 

[Spenc]

17 hours ago, Lola said:

From your first post n the subject:

"I would like to have relationship with at least one parent"

 

17 hours ago, Lola said:

From your most recent post in response to me:

"My step mother is kind, open minded person. She became sort of a mother to me. She supported me in my dreams and thanks to her I am where I am. Ironically enough she has been the only "parent"  that actually listens what you have to say with no agenda. I am able to approach her with challenging topics even those days. I like her and I am very comfortable around her."

How do you know that it is your father that is the "at least one parent" you would like to have a relationship with?